


Five Left Turns At Albuquerque

by RileyC



Category: Oz - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-20
Updated: 2010-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-09 15:03:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Chris and Toby's story might have gone a different way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Left Turns At Albuquerque

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CatHeights](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatHeights/gifts).



**   
**

O Happy Dagger

_Revisiting a certain night in “Family Bizness,” S2, and giving it a slight tweak…_

Being awakened in the middle of the night by Beecher’s restless, nightmare-driven tossing and turning up above has become part of the routine for Chris. At first it was a pain in the ass, then he realized it could be a useful tool to help Operation Toby come along, and now it bothers him. And _that_ bothers him more.

Paying off an old debt, that’s all this was supposed to be. Only it’s … changed, and if he can’t quite put a finger on it, one thing’s for certain: he’s breaking Rule #2 –  Keep It Simple. Don’t get elaborate; don’t try and juggle a half dozen balls in the air; don’t spin someone _War and Peace_ when all they need to hear is the _Reader’s Digest _version.

He’s lost track of how many balls he’s got in the air now. Lying to Vern, lying to Toby – and he’s not so sure the guy looking back at him when he shaves is clued all the way in, either.

He turns on his side, trying not to listen to Beecher climb down, bare feet scuffing the floor on the way to the john. He tries not to think about the other day, wrestling with Beecher; the kick of knowing he was turning Beecher on … and the shiver in his belly when he’d had Beecher close and tight, watching a bead of sweat roll down Beecher’s face and wondering what it would taste like on his tongue.

He tries to forget the angry disgust he’d felt when Vern came over, gloating over Beecher’s wife killing herself.

He doesn’t want to hear the small, choked sobs Beecher’s trying to keep to himself now, either.

Fuck.

It’s going to get them both killed. No possibility anything good can come of it. They aren’t Romeo and Juliet, for Christ’s sake, he thinks, remembers how the play ends and thinks again, Fuck, maybe they are.

He slips up behind Beecher, rubbing his shoulders, his back, pressing his face into Beecher’s hair, telling him, “No, you’re not alone,” and when Beecher turns into him, holding tight, Chris hardly feels the dagger as it pierces his heart.

 

Something Extraordinary

_Or, suppose Toby had listened to the _right_ person, in “A Cock and Balls Story,” S4..._

“Chris—“

“Beecher,” Said grasps his arm, holding him in place, “let him go. This is your chance to change things, and you need to begin by stepping away from Keller.”

Toby looks at Said, at Chris disappearing into their pod, conflict boiling away inside. “He might be right, Said. He knows Schillinger.”

“Yes,” Said says, a fervency in his tone that makes Toby uncomfortable. “He knows Schillinger. All he understands is the kind of twisted filth that spawns a Schillinger – or a Keller. If you let him, he will corrupt you, drag you down with him. Doing something decent, something that isn’t selfish and ugly, is alien to him.”

“He saved my life.”

“Because he wanted something in return.”

Yes, Toby can’t deny that. Chris had wanted something – a kiss. A kiss, a touch; just to be allowed close to him. If Toby hadn’t wanted it, nothing else would have happened. He could tell Said that, but it would fall on deaf ears – and a closed mind. Said doesn’t get it … And if Said doesn’t get &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt;, is his judgment on anything else anything to shout about?

“I need to think about this,” Toby says.

“You’ll make the right decision, Beecher,” Said says, and Toby hopes he’s right about that much, at least.

***

Chris is stretched out on his bunk when Toby walks into the pod, arms folded over his chest, radiating frustration… And fear?

“Chris…” Toby sits on the edge of the bunk, turned to face him, resting one hand lightly on Chris’ leg. “Don’t give me orders.” He keeps it easy, as casual as possible without losing any meaning. He doesn’t want this to escalate.

“How else do I make you listen to me?”

“You don’t. You can’t _make_ me listen,” he says, running his fingers up and down Chris’ shin. “We discuss, we listen to each other – that’s how it works.”

“And you’d give me the time of day?” Chris sits up then, giving him a skeptical once more. “You’ll give what I say as much weight as Said?”

It hurts that Chris thinks he wouldn’t, but Toby knows he’s given Chris plenty of cause to believe that. He’s not even sure it’s a misconception. He wants to believe Said and Mukada are right; that good deeds are paid forward and nothing’s so damaged it cannot be fixed.

He tells Chris that, says, “It’s not that I think Said speaks with more authority, Chris. It’s  … I want it to be true. I want to believe that doing something good for Schillinger will change him, make him a different man –  a better one, and we benefit from that in turn. That we don’t have to be afraid and looking over our shoulders all the time, waiting for the next shoe to drop.”

“Toby,” Chris sighs, shakes his head. “Look at you, wanting to wish on a star,” he says, but making it kind. “You know life don’t work that way. Not here, not anywhere I’ve ever been.”

Not anywhere Toby had ever been, either, but still… “I want it to work that way.”

“It’d be a pretty world,” Chris says, and looks like he can see it, like he’d want it if he could believe it was something solid, something he could touch. “Vern’s not like you, Toby. He’s not going to see a kind deed. He’s going to think it’s a trick; that you’re setting him up for something, and he’ll want retribution. And, Toby, Vern’s Old Testament, an eye for eye. Don’t ever forget that, not for a minute.”

“But, Chris,” if he could only make him see, “Vern would never know I had anything to do with it. Don’t you see? That’s the whole point. This son, Hank, just comes back into his life, out of the blue, nothing leading back to me.”

“You know that saying, how two people can keep a secret if one of them’s dead? Toby,” Chris grasps Toby’s shoulders, kneading, “how many people already know about this, without anything even happening yet? How many more will have heard something by the time it comes off? All it takes is one weasel overhearing something and scurrying off to tell Vern all about it.”

Toby wants to insist that would never happen, that Chris is just being paranoid, but the seed’s been planted and it grows fast.

He doesn’t ask his father to locate Hank Schillinger, and when he sees Said the next time, he asks him to never bring up the subject again, and when Guillame Tarrant comes to Em City and shoots up the place, Chris is safe and sound in the pod with Toby – and while Tarrant doesn’t live happily ever after, a few other people get a better crack at that than they would have, if a different path had been walked.

_Then again, events set in motion might be too powerful change, so that the best to be hoped for is a rare and fleeting glimpse of sunlight in the dark abyss of Oz…_

Special Delivery

Chris never played Post Office when he was a kid. He never got invited those parties, and remembers how that felt. The memory’s grown dim, though, and whatever he might have missed out back then, what he’s _got_ \-- Toby close enough to touch, Toby close enough to kiss, and it doesn’t even matter if there’s bars between them – is so much better than any horny teenager could ever dream.

Even breathing’s a minor detail; a hurried breath snatched before he pulls Toby close again, fingers tangling in gold curls at the nape of Toby’s neck to bring him as close as possible as he kisses Toby’s mouth. The taste of Toby’s enough to sustain him anyway. Food, water, air – he can live without any of them a hell of a lot easier.

“Chris…” It takes a couple seconds, but Toby drags his lips away, hands grabbing hold of Chris’ shoulders, holding him there. “We don’t have a lot of time, Chris.”

His mouth twitches with a dark smile. Toby’s gotta state the obvious? “So let’s not waste any,” Chris says and tries to reel him in again, but Toby’s wilier now and wriggles partway free, standing there with that put out look on his face – and that just makes Chris want to kiss him some more and make that look go away.

Because he’s wily, though, Toby moves just the fraction farther than Chris can reach him and lets out a little aggravated huff. “Chris, there are things you need to know.”

Christ, this ain’t gonna be good. Those words, said like that, never mean anything but bad news. Still, there’s not much he can do except say, “Okay, what?”

“First, it looks like I’ll be coming up for a parole hearing pretty soon, and all the signs are it could really happen this time.” He says it right out, almost quick, like the way you rip off a Band-Aid: it’s going to sting either way, so might as well do it fast as possible.

Chris nods. “Okay.” It’s not like he didn’t know it was going to happen. He wants to be happy. Part of him is. But … Well, it’ll take some getting used to, he admits. Still, it won’t be the fifty years of missing Toby he’d once anticipated, finally seeing a bright side to being on death row. “That’s good, Toby. I’m glad for you.” And that’s only 50% not true. Give or take.

“I didn’t want you to hear from someone else,” Toby says, eyes sad, mouth turned down at the corners, because he knows that matters. Knows someone else (neither one will say it, but they’re both thinking: Vern) would pass that information along in a way meant to hurt; meant to make Chris believe Toby’d walked out of Oz and hadn’t stopped a second to tell him goodbye.

“And second?”

“And second,” now Toby comes in close again, reaching through to cover Chris’ hands where they’re holding onto the crossbars, “I’ve talked to my father, and he’s agreed to work on your appeal.”

His appeal? “What’re you talking about, Beech?” Now what’s he up to?

“That trial – it was a disgrace. Agent Taylor outright suborned perjury. When Dad’s through with him, Taylor will be lucky if he’s sweeping the floors at the J. Edgar Hoover Building.”

Chris doesn’t know about that. He’s pretty sure what’s been set in motion can’t be stopped. His luck’s never played that way. Or, only one time, maybe, he amends that, looking at Toby standing there, all bright and shiny and loving Chris.

“I’m where I belong, Toby,” he says, though, because they do both know it’s true.

Fierce now, eyes bright with it, Toby shakes his head. “No. Not on death row, Chris. You don’t belong here.”

“Lotta people’d disagree with you.”

“And a lot of people can go fuck themselves.”

Chris smiles then, almost laughs, because he knows there’s no budging him; not when Toby’s got his mind made up like this. Growing somber, though, thinking on all the years stretching ahead of him, he says, “Dying might be kinder, Toby.”

“No.”

“Bee—“

“No,” Toby says, even more definite, reaching through the bars to cup a hand along Chris’ face. “Dead’s forever, Chris. Alive, there’s always a chance.”

“Of what?” Chris asks, disbelieving. He used up all his chances a long time ago, and there’s no long forgotten Get Out Of Jail ticket tucked away somewhere.

“Let me work on it, will you?” Toby asks him, more sincere than Linus freezing his ass off in the pumpkin patch. “I’m going to have a lot of time on my hands,” he goes on, smiling now, rubbing his thumb back and forth along Chris’ bottom lip. “Just one time, Chris,” he says, “try believing the glass is half full,” and comes in for another kiss.

“Half full of poison, maybe,” Chris mumbles against his lips.

Toby pulls back, frowning at him. “Keller…” But then he sighs, kisses him again, and says, “You just go on thinking every silver lining has a cloud. I’ll show you different.”

And as Toby proceeds to kiss him breathless, for that moment in time, Chris believes.

Since that moment in time is all they have for certain, maybe it’s enough.

 

_If that long and winding road arrived at the same destination, though, no matter what, there might still be one last chance, because – really – what exactly was the plan? _

The Bus and the Tourists Are Gone

It’s late in the season now. Plenty of summer warmth left in the breeze, but Toby’s not sorry to see the stretch of beach empty. There’s a kind of freedom in this solitude he’s never known, and it’s brought a peace he hadn’t thought would ever be within his reach.

There’s a price, of course, nothing comes free, but it’s been easier to pay than he’d expected.

He stands there, barefoot on the deck, gazing out at the ocean, its smooth surface reflecting the reds and golds of the setting sun. There’s not a sound except the calls of birds and the hum of insects, and the slow and steady rush of water rolling up on the sandy beach and then away again.

He walks down there, lets the surf wash over his feet, the breeze drying the sweat that’s made his shirt cling to his back. Rolling the sleeves up, he undoes a few buttons, wishing he could tan. The best he ever does is freckle, and he’s way too old to think they’re cute, the way they scatter over his nose and cheeks, no matter what anyone else might tell him.

There’s a hammock set up a little ways down the beach, swaying slightly, and he walks toward it, calling out, “Dinner’s ready anytime you are.”

“Any reason it can’t wait awhile?” Chris calls back, voice lazy as the day, making no move to get out of the hammock.

“It can,” he says. Wouldn’t be the first time the food got cold while other things got hot.

“C’mere.”

He smiles, positive the hammock’s going to collapse on them one of these days, but gamely climbs up and in, making himself comfortable.

“What’re you thinking?”

He’s not sure. That he’s happy? Only it’s something deeper than that. “That I have no regrets,”  he finally says, after giving it more thought.

“You sure about that?”

He can’t fault the skepticism running rich through that question. There was a time when regrets ran deep and contentment wasn’t remotely on the horizon. “Yeah, I am,”  he says, turning his head to press a kiss to a broad, tanned shoulder.

“Glad to hear it.”

“What about you? What’re you thinking?” he asks.

“That it was about time you joined me here.”

He smiles, finding it very easy to concur with that.

Lips brush his cheek as his head is gently tugged down to rest on that broad shoulder. “You could go. You could say you were abducted, coerced—“

“I was abducted and coerced – and I’m not going anywhere.”

“But you could.”

“And yet,” Toby shifted, leaned over and kissed those lips quiet, “I don’t.”

“No, I guess you don’t,” Chris whispers as if he’ll never quite believe it, and draws him down for another kiss that makes sure everything is real.

 

_In the end, of course, should all else fail, there’s always the alternative of last resort, such as..._

Heaven

_Heaven, I’m in Heaven_

_And the cares that hung around me through the week_

_Seem to vanish like a gambler’s lucky streak…_

The music drifts out from the hotel’s ballroom, reaching the moonlit terrace, and Chris snags Toby, drawing him close to sway in time to the melody.

“Someone might see,” Toby says – though he makes no attempt to move away, and in fact presses closer, his arms going around Chris in return.

“Do we care?” Chris says, nuzzling his temple.

Toby’s kiss steals his breath-- and tells him everything he needs to know.

“Guess not,” Chris murmurs when they part a moment for air, before resuming a dance that he knows, now, will never come to an end.

_I'm in Heaven,_

_And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak;_

_And I seem to find the happiness I seek_

_When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek…_


End file.
